So Long, Wee Memories!

I'm really sad to see the Wee Memories challenges coming to an end although I understand Jenny's reasons for making the decision.  Wee Memories holds a special place in my heart as it's the first challenge that I ever placed in!  My ribbon flower was chosen as one of the Fab 4 last January.  I was so excited to finally add a challenge blinkie to my sidebar.  :)  Anyway, the final challenge is a sketch challenge which almost sent me running in the other direction but I was determined to suck up my sketch fear and not miss out on this special event.  I didn't really think about this before but I guess it's kind of appropriate to have made a sympathy card for the passing of the challenge!  And look at all that patterned paper up there!  It's from Basic Grey's Origins collection - yes, I have a lot of oldie goldies in my stash...  The stamps are Hero Arts.  My thanks to Jenny and the design team for all the fabulous challenges and inspiration and I look forward to seeing what comes next for you all!  :)
Cardstock:  (White) Bazzill, (Early Espresso) Stampin' Up
Patterned Paper:  (Authentic, Sea Salt, Paraffin from the Origins collection) Basic Grey
Stamps:  (Leaves from Delicate Leaf Clusters, Sentiment from With Sympathy) Hero Arts
Ink:  (VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko, (Early Espresso) Stampin' UP!
Dies:  (Nestabilities Labels 10) Spellbinders, (Medium scallop border) PTI
Punch:  (1/16" hole punch) McGill
Twine:  Craft supply

Work it, girl.

When I saw the sassy poses of the ladies on this Unity stamp I thought of the phrase, "Work it, girl!"  And, whenever I look at the Runway Inspired Challenge site, that RuPaul song, "Supermodel" pops into my head - "You better work!  Work it, girl!"  So what better challenge to use the phrase for than the RIC challenge!  Aside from RuPaul, my inspiration for the card came from the colours in the picture (green bag, mustard strap, purple sunglasses, white and beige dress) and the graphic background.  I couldn't find any stripes I liked so I went for the blue grid instead in keeping with the graphic feel.  The dots around the ladies are highlighted with lavender Stickles and the ladies themselves are covered in Glossy Accents (that green bag looks kinda shiny to me...).    I'm also going to enter this over at the Wee Memories Anything Goes challenge. 


I know my posts have been sporadic lately but I'm now officially going on a blogging break for a week or so.  Got a lot going on and am not going to be seeing the inside of the Craft Cave any time soon.  So before I go I just want to wish you the very happiest of holidays and sent out big festive hugs to all! 
Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (White) Bazzill, (Kraft) PTI
Stamps:  (Image from Nov 2011 KOM - Take Your Time) Unity Stamp Co, (Sentiment from Smitty's ABCs) Lawn Fawn,  (Grid Background) Hero Arts
Inks:  (More Mustard, Not Quite Navy, Wisteria Wonder) Stampin' Up,  (Jardin Moss) Palette
Gems: (Lavender Ice) Queen & Co
Glitter:  (Lavender Stickles) Ranger
Other:  Glossy Accents

Mix It Up!

***This is my 2nd post for the day.  Please click here for my Friends With Flair/Paper Players post!***

I thought I'd have time to post this after I got home from work but I just realised that one of the challenges closes in only 4 hours!  This card is for the Wee Memories Birthdays & Parties challenge and also for the Use It Tuesdays cooking challenge. I love the Cosmo Cricket Early Bird and Garden Variety collections and have been hoarding them for ages now.  I also have a million Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type stickers that I use very sparingly.  I really don't know what I think I'm saving all this stuff for. I'm sure all my stash would be much happier to find itself on a card than collecting dust in the Craft Cave.  Thanks, Use It Tuesday for kicking my butt into gear and getting me to put this stuff to use!  Okay, really gotta dash now - back later with the blog candy!

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (Real Red) Stampin' Up

Patterned Paper:  (Sunday Picnic from Garden Variety collection, Image from Early Bird collection) Cosmo CricketStickers:  (Tiny Type) Cosmo Cricket

Thankful Trees

Hello, all! Popping in with a quick card for several challenges. First off, if you have any Unity or Ippity stamps you should definitely join in with Unity's Friends With Flair weekly event.  Not only do you get to see a ton of fabulous cards but you have two chances to win a prize - one by entering and one by commenting on the other cards.  Easy!  I'm also going to enter my card in The Paper Players fall themed challenge, Wee Memories' Brads, Buttons or Bows challenge, Simon Says Stamp's button challenge and Use It Tuesday's Orange, Black or Purple challenge.  I bought those little buttons at the dollar store about 3 years ago and since then they've done nothing but look cute in their little storage drawer.  Now they finally get to look cute on a card!  :)

And just an update to let you know that the puppies that Atticus donated blood to are doing really well.  It was amazing to watch their transformation as the blood was infused.  At the start they could barely stand.  Halfway through they were looking around and reacting to what was going on in the room.  By the end we had to hold them down because they were up and about and wanting to scamper around!  A beautiful sight!  :)

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (Kraft) PTI, (Old Olive)  Stampin' Up
Stamps:  (Trees from Bella Trees, Sentiment from Sept 2011 KOM - All Seasons) Unity Stamp Co
Ink:  (Chocolate Chip, Cajun Craze) Stampin' Up
Buttons:  Craft Supply

If Nothing Ever Changed...

I am so not a dress girl but I actually really like the one in this inspiration picture for the latest Tuesday Trigger over at the Moxie Fab World.  I took my inspiration from the colours and the design on the dress.  I pulled out PTI's Butterfly Kisses set and used silver embossing powder for both the image and the Unity sentiment. Since I added a little bling, I am also entering this in the Lily Pad Bling Challenge.  Also Wee Memories has a Free for All challenge this week so I thought I'd link up there too. 
Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (Basic Grey, Tempting Turquoise) Stampin' Up
Stamps:  (Image from Butterfly Kisses) PTI, ( sentiment from November 2010 KOM - Picture Perfect) Unity Stamp Co
Ink:  (VersaMark) Tsukineko
Embossing Powder: (Silver) Ranger

Dies:  (Nestabilities Labels Fourteen) Spellbinders

Gems:  Doodlebug Designs

Triple Threat

***This is my 2nd post for the day.  Please click here for my ColourQ entry!*** 

This card is a triple threat challenge card!  I'm entering it in All Things Unity's Be Inspired challenge, the Young Crafters Unite Envelope to Match challenge and the Holiday Madness Challenge at Wee Memories.  The inspiration for the ATU challenge came from this picture of a pillow I found in Real Simple magazine.  I liked the turquoise and white design and, although I initially planned that the images would be more like the pillow, I ended up using the Christmas tree because it has a folky feel to it.      

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (White) Bazzill Basics, (Tempting Turquoise) Stampin' Up
Stamps:  (Image and sentiment from Sept 2011 KOM - All Seasons) Unity Stamp Co
Ink:  (Tempting Turquoise) Stampin' Up
Dies:  (Nestabilities Labels 14)  Spellbinders
Gems:  Doodlebug

Boo!

***This is my 2nd post of the day.  Please scroll down for my Use It Tuesday post or click here!***

I love the funky colours at The Play Date Cafe challenge this week as well as the fun names they gave them - Slime Green, Frightful Fuscia, Putrid Purple and Black As Night.  They definitely put me in the Halloween mood so I pulled out this Purple Onion ghost stamp and got to work punching and layering circles and ghosts.  If you have a ghost you must have some "Boo" so I took some black letter stickers and sparkled them up a bit with some Gunmetal Stickles (which is also on the ghosts' eyes).  Wee Memories and Create are both having challenges for Halloween cards this week so I'm going to enter this card with them as well.  

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (Black, Purple) Bazzill Basics, (Rich Razzleberry, Lucky Limeade) Stampin' Up
Stamp:  (Ghost from Halloween set) Purple Onion Designs
Ink:  (VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko
Impression Plate:  (Linen) PTI

Punches:  (1" & 1 1/2" circle punches) EK Success
Stickers:  Scenic Route
Glitter:  (Stickles Gunmetal)  Ranger

Paper Piecing Throwdown

***This is my 2nd post of the day.  Scroll down for my Tuesday Trigger post!***

Another card from my WCMD weekend. This was made using the colours from the Colour Throwdown challenge.  I used a Woodware USA stamp and did some paper piecing. This works perfectly for the Wee Memories challenge this week as we are to use our favourite technique on our project and I love me some paper piecing.  :)  And, surprise, surprise (say it with me now!) - I'm going to enter this in the 4 Crafty Chicks and Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenges.  I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and managed to squeeze in some crafty time.  I've had a blast checking out what everyone has been up to - so much amazing inspiration!      

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (White) Bazzill Basics, (Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Poppy Parade, Chocolate Chip) Stampin' Up
Stamps:  (Image) Woodware USA, (Sentiment from Asian Fusion) PTI
Inks:  (VersaMark & VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko

Embossing Powder:  (Seafoam White) Ranger

Snips And Snails

Looky looky looky what we have here!  Patterned paper!  I was inspired by the Wee Memories challenge to use patterned paper. This week's sponsor is Echo Park and not only did I  use patterned paper but I used Echo Park patterned paper!  Oh yeah!  I paired my paper with the sketch at The Paper Players and, although it's not required, I wanted to actually use a Stampin' Up stamp so I have broken these out for the first time and inked one up.  Whoop whoop!  I'm also going to enter this in the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge (can you tell how bad I want to win that gift certificate?).  So now that I've busted out the PP I'm going to have to attempt to get a little more creative with it.  Can't spend the rest of my life sticking rectangular pieces of it to card stock!

Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (Green, White) Bazzill Basics, (Cajun Craze, Night of Navy) Stampin' Up

Patterned Paper:  (Little Boy collection) Echo Park

Stamp:  (Sentiment) Stampin' Up

Ink:  (Night of Navy) Stampin' Up

Dies:  (Nesties Classic Ovals Large) Spellbinders, (Stars) My Favourite Things   

Two Tuesdays and a Trigger

***This is my 2nd post of the day.  Please scroll down for my Colour Throwdown/Lily Pad Cards/Use It Tuesday card***

Today I played along with the Tuesday Trigger at the Moxie Fab World and, for the third card in a row, I used previously uninked stamps - hello, Use It Tuesday!  :) (This card also qualifies for the Wee Memories No Pattered Paper challenge).  I was inspired by a lot in the Trigger photo.  I used PTI's Modern Basics to create a green and white pattern like the one on the chair. I used the brown from the table edge and the turquoise from the book (I think it's a book) that the vase is sitting on.  And then there's that gorgeous flower.  If you look really closely there is a touch of pink at it's centre. My flower is made out of parchment paper.  I cut several sizes from the Nestabilities Peony die, scrumpled them all up and then put them together with a pink brad.  I'm really chuffed with how it came out!  :)       

Supplies Used:

Cardstock:  (Tempting Turquoise, Chocolate Chip) Stampin' Up, (White) Bazzill
Stamps:  (Shapes from Modern Basics, Sentiment from Fillable Frames #4) PTI
Ink:  ( Chocolate Chip & Garden Green) Stampin' Up
Die:  (Nestabilities Peony) Spellbinders

Copic:  G07

Share The Joy

When I woke up this morning I thought that it was much earlier than it actually was as it was so dark outside.  Yes!  It was a gorgeous, grey, thundery, rainy day!  Whoo hoo!  So I abandoned hubby and the dogs and high tailed it to the Craft Cave for some much needed crafty time.  I started with this week's ColourQ colours and decided I would also play along with Use It Tuesday's challenge to use an uninked stamp.  ETA:  Neither of these stamps had been inked before.  (Actually, I could probably enter that challenge every day for the next few months!)  My card is also eligible for the Wee Memories challenge to not use patterned paper.  Triple challenge score!  Whoop whoop!  I stamped, embossed, fussy cut and paper pieced the Unity image and then coloured the gems with Copics to match.  Wasn't sure at first about having that much grey on a Christmas card but I like it! What do you think?


Supplies Used:
Cardstock:  (Tempting Turquoise, Certainly Celery, Poppy Parade, Basic Grey) Stampin' Up, (White) Bazzill
Stamps:  (Image from October 2010 KOM - Take Time to Laugh) Unity Stamp Co, (Sentiment from Get Merry!) Hero Arts
Ink:  (VersaFine Onyx Black) Tsukineko
Embossing Powder:  (Clear) Ranger
Gems:  Craft Supplies for Less
Copics:  R17, YG03, BG05

Old School Bikes

Just a little something for this week's Just Add Ink colour challenge and the Wee Memories Masculine Challenge.  I like the dusty, deserty colours although my card has nothing to do with dust and deserts!  Unless you count dust kicked up by these cool bikes of course.  :)  Off to work now.  Have a great day!

Supplies Used:

Cardstock: (Cajun Craze, Peach Parfait, Bashful Blue) Stampin' Up, (Cream) Craft supply

Stamps: Hero Arts

Ink: (Cajun Craze) Stampin' Up

Dies:  MFT Die-namics Stacking Stars

Gems:  Basic Grey

My Couch Misses You

Tropical Storm Gert was supposed to pass over us today so I bundled myself into the Craft Cave ready for a lovely stormy day.  And did we get one?  No!  Good ol' Gert passed by to our east and we didn't even get a rain shower out of it - just grey skies and high humidity!  Ah well.  It ended up being a productive day for me.  I started by working on an entry for this week's Play Date Cafe challenge.  I used PTI's On My Couch for the first time.  I've been wanting to play with it for ages and especially love this couch with the fun pattern.  I'm also going to enter this in this week's Wee Memories challenge because even though it has some bling, I still think it has a pretty masculine feel to it.

***ETA:  Just discovered the A Passion for Papertrey challenge site and they are currently running a masculine challenge so I'm going to link this up and hope it's okay that I didn't do it when I posted yesterday.***

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: (White, Yellow) Bazzill, (Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso) Stampin' Up

Stamps: (Couch & pillow from On My Couch, Rug from On My Couch Additions) PTI, (Sentiment from Funky Foliage) WPlus9

Ink: (Early Espresso) Stampin' Up

Gems: Doodlebug

Fighting the Lack of Mojo

I had expected to be posting an entry for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge tonight. However, try as I might, I could not get the really cool idea in my head to translate on to paper.  It was SO frustrating!!  I've noticed a lot of people saying their mojo has gone AWOL lately and I think that mine has joined the deserters too.  Everything I tried felt like an epic fail.  I really hate those days...  However, I was determined to come out of the Craft Cave with something at least slightly respectable so I turned my energies to this week's Less Is More challenge to use the colours of your nation's flag.  Since Bermuda's flag is pretty colourful I decided to also enter my card in the latest Wee Memories challenge - to use no less than 4 colours on your card.

So here's the Bermuda flag.  We've got the old flag favourite colours of red, white and blue (we are a British territory after all!) and also some green, yellow, sky blue, beige and brown. Quite a selection!  The picture in the crest depicts the ship Sea Venture running aground on Bermuda's treacherous reefs.  The Sea Venture was on it's way to Jamestown, VA to provide relief to the struggling colony.  Instead, they got caught up in a hurricane and ended up in Bermuda.  Eventually they build 2 new ships and some people carried on to VA while others became the island's first settlers.  But enough of the history lesson - onto the card!

Supplies: CS: Bazzill & misc; Stamp: (image) Unity, (sentiment) Hero Arts; Inks: VersaMark,  Tea Dye Distress Ink; Gems: Doodlebug

With all those colours I wanted to keep things fairly simple so I found this harlequin stripe stamp in All You Need (Unity's August 2010 KOM).  I stamped it in VersaMark on each coloured paper and fussy cut it.  I used the Tea Dye ink on the sentiment and matted the banner on chocolate paper to bring in the beige and brown.  It's hard to go wrong on a card with a rainbow element and finishing this made me feel slightly less useless than I had earlier in the day!  Tomorrow is my long day at work so no carding.  Maybe the break will give my mojo time to find it's way home!

Flowers and Spiders

I'm determined to get my Just Add Ink entry in on time this week!  The challenge is Just Add a Flower.  I've combined it with this week's Wee Memories challenge which is paper piecing.

Hero Arts has so many big layered flower images that are great for paper piecing.  I used some My Mind's Eye paper that came free with a magazine (whoo hoo for freebies!).  I thought it was a bright and colourful mom-esque card so I added mom sentiment.  I had fun with the bling too.  :)  

Supplies: PP: My Mind's Eye; Stamps: HA, Elzybells, Inks: VersaFine Onyx Black, Palette Jardin Moss; Bling: Doodlebug

Remember that big ole' wolf spider I mentioned in this post?  Well, his much smaller brother came to visit and this time I got a picture. 

This dude was about half the size of the last one and a lot faster.  He got away from me before I could relocate him outside.  Guess that means I'll be seeing him again at some point...

Tangled Up

This is the second time in a week I've come across a challenge and had an instant flash of inspiration!  Whoop whoop!  Normally I agonise for ages over what to do but this has been a nice change.  Hopefully I'll be due for one more inspiration flash (as things come in threes right?)

The challenge is at Wee Memories - Challenge #51 Tangled Up.  We are to use twine in our project.  Now I don't have any of that awesome Twinery baker's twine (not yet, anyway!) but I have plenty of regular brown twine.  Maybe it was the word "tangled" but I immediately thought of a bird's nest and put together this little card:

Supplies: CS: SU & Bazzill; PP: Basic Grey; Stamps: PTI & Elzybells; Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black & VersaFine  Sepia; Twine: Ikandee

I love that little PTI birdie!  He comes in handy for so many things and I'm sure will make many more appearances here in the future.


Must go check on hubby.  Poor guy had 2 teeth pulled today and is completely miserable at the moment.  He's snuggled up on the sofa under a duvet giving me pathetic puppy dog eyes.  Or that could be one of the actual dogs as they're both piled on top of him...  Hmmm...          

Challengarama!

As I mentioned yesterday, I haven't been playing along with many challenges lately.  However, I had a bit of time in the Craft Cave today and decided to tackle a few.  I really would love to do a different card for each challenge but, as always, there aren't enough minutes in the day and I figured I'd combine some.  However, I was still surprised that this card ended up incorporating 4 different challenges!  Here's what we're entering today:

Stamping 411 #194 - Yes, I am again facing down my nemesis again - a sketch!

Color Cue #13

Wee Memories Challenge #47

Woodware USA Challenge #18 - Spring Is Coming!

Woodware has so many cute flower stamps and I really like these framed ones.  After working on this card today I have a few more ideas for these stamps.  Must make a note before those ideas float away...

Supplies: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics; Stamps: Woodware USA; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; EF: Cuttlebug; Copics: Y08, YG23 & C1